For the past few weeks, Chicago rapper Lil Durk and the recently released Tekashi 69 have traded insults and threats online as 69 returned to his trolling ways in the wake of his stint in prison. While Tekashi visited various sites in Chicago including posting a video to his Instagram “paying respect” to Durk’s cousin who was killed, Durk claimed that Tekashi’s management offered him $3 million to keep the beef going.
Now, however, Durk has some advice for Tekashi on what to do with that $3 million after Hits Daily Double updated the first-week sales projections for Tekashi’s new album TattleTales. Upon the album’s release, Tekashi boasted that it was projected to land around 150,000, but once the streaming numbers were actually tallied, those numbers were adjutsted downward by about 100,000, giving Durk all the ammo he needed to score one last laugh at 69’s expense. Reposing DJ Akademiks’ tweet detailing the adjustment to his Instgram Story, Durk gloated, “Should of took that 3million and got some mfer album sales…”
Instagram
Meanwhile, Durk, who released his single “The Voice” the same day as TattleTales, confirmed that the single would lead to an album with the same title dropping sometime in October. Fans had previously assumed the album would drop this past Friday as well and while 69 trolled him over only releasing the single, it looks like Durk isn’t above rubbing a little salt in the wound.
See Durk’s response to Tekashi’s album sales misfortune above.
Stella Rose Bennett couldn’t have predicted her global breakout at a time when people couldn’t see her perform live, much less leave their houses. Even still, the 20-year old artist known as Benee is taking on her new notoriety with optimism, a mentality Benee chalks up to her New Zealand roots. “It’s kind of like island time,” she told me over Zoom while the country was days away from lifting their second mandatory lockdown.
Benee infuses the same breeziness into her music, and this laidback attitude drew her fans to her viral hit “Supalonely.” Its buoyant, elastic keyboards combined with Benee’s animated lyrical delivery won over the most popular TikTok stars — catapulting the singer into viral fame — and captivated audiences across the world. It was elating for Benee to see her favorite YouTubers busting out intricate choreographies to her song and racking up hundreds of thousands of views, and even more surreal when “Supalonely” caught Elton John’s attention, who called it the “next global smash.”
Though the single boasts an upbeat tempo, Benee wrote “Supalonely” after a particularly painful breakup. Clashing cheerful beats with forlorn themes is Benee’s forte. “I really love the contrast between having happy, kind of playful, upbeat production and having really sad lyrics,” she said. “That’s what I’m drawn to when I’m listening to music.”
The same moody juxtaposition appears on her Kennybeats collaboration, “Night Garden.” Revealing the song was originally modeled after a Wu-Tang Clan track, Benee said: “I played him Wu-Tang at the start of the session and I was like, ‘I want to be like this. Let’s make something like this. And then I fully committed to making it spooky.” Underscored by a rhythmic beat, the song is equally playful and haunting as Benee details a story of a man watching her from outside her window. Benee remarked while the song’s storyline isn’t inspired by entirely true events, “It is this complete fear that I have.”
The fear of being watched is something she’s struggled with in the past, similarly using it as inspiration for her Stella & Steve EP’s “Monsta.” “I would stay up until like 3:00 a.m. until I literally had to knock myself out. I just had this really gross feeling there was someone watching me every night.”
Coming into fame has only heightened the fear as Benee suddenly finds herself being noticed in public. Benee even had to ward off a stalker who followed her in their car while recording her on their phone. “I’m sure [with] some people, that wouldn’t phase them. But someone like me, who overthinks everything and is anxious, it does not help,” she said.
Benee’s fame has caused her some anxiety but it has conversely led to newfound confidence in her songwriting, especially on her upcoming debut album. Benee has yet to announce her full-length release but much if it is already complete, and she’s hoping to ride the momentum of her “Supalonely” success. “I think with this album, I haven’t really held back on experimenting with genres and even lyrics,” Benee said. “Maybe I would have been more hesitant to do some of the things that I’ve done on this album in my previous bodies of work.”
For the first time, Benee is able to candidly write about her struggles with anxiety and depression, translating those experiences into music. While fans can expect to hear some of the same lush chords and exuberent beats heard on her latest releases, Benee notes her new work further blurs genre lines, infusing elements of “hardcore” electronic with trap-style beats. “I feel like some people who like my other stuff are going to hate this because it’s pretty different,” she said. “But I had a lot of fun making it.”
Pushing boundaries is important to Benee. It’s also something she’s used to, having dropped out of university two weeks after arriving to pursue music full-time. “I wanted to give this music thing more time and more effort,” she said. “And I felt like going to university was holding me back from that.”
Her aversion to convention materializes in her reluctance to conform to one genre. “I like the idea of blending genres and I don’t like the idea of kind of pinpointing,” she said. Instead, whether she’s modeling her sound after Wu-Tang Clan or experimenting with beats on her upcoming full-length, Benee leans on a metaphor to describe her innovative sound more aptly. “I would call [my music] a crispy apple because I try to make a fresh sound. So it’s a fresh, crispy, apple.”
There’s not much Star Wars fans agree on in the Disney era. The Force Awakens is an exciting, necessary reset from the prequels… unless it’s a blatant rip-off of A New Hope. The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back (because it is)… unless it’s the worst Star Wars movie ever. The Rise of Skywalker is a terrific trilogy-capper… unless it’s a crummy slog. Even the theme park land, Galaxy’s Edge, has led to heated debates over whether Disney went “too far.” Just about the only things Star Wars fans can agree on is: Babu Frik is a sweetie and The Mandalorian rules.
The Disney+ series was a hit among critics and viewers from episode one when the Child, a.k.a. Baby Yoda, made his adorable debut. And, y’know, all the stuff with Mando was good, too, but all discussions about The Mandalorian must return to Baby Yoda. The show’s little green breakout character is the reason showrunner Jon Favreau knew he was working on something special, as he explained to Entertainment Weekly:
It was December 2019. The Mandalorian had been airing for only about a month on the nascent streaming service Disney+ when showrunner Jon Favreau saw an online photo of a large mural halfway across the world. The street art depicted his show’s cherubic, wide-eyed, Force-sensitive character peering solemnly from under a bridge. That was the moment, Favreau says, when he realized his series was becoming a phenomenon: The Mandalorian hadn’t yet aired in France — or anywhere in Europe, for that matter.
“The show wasn’t there!” Favreau said. “Something was going on where people were connecting with the characters, with social media allowing them to see aspects of the show before they even knew what it was.” How could you not connect to this cutie?
DISNEY+
Good thing they didn’t go with the alternate design. The Mandalorian returns next month.
Last week, BTS did something that hadn’t been done in music before: They became the first all-South Korean artist to have a song (“Dynamite”) top the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The group is in uncharted territory, and now they’ve taken things even further, as “Dynamite” has stayed at No. 1 for a second week, on the chart dated September 12.
This week’s chart success establishes some new firsts. “Dynamite” is their first song to spend multiple weeks at No. 1, and it’s the first song by an all-South Korean artist to spend more than one week on top (it’s also the only song to do both those things). “Dynamite” was the 43rd song to debut at No. 1, but is now only the 20th of those to stay at No. 1 during its second week. It’s also the first song in nearly four years to have sold over 180,000 downloads in consecutive weeks (265,000 its first week, 182,000 this week), following The Chainsmokers and Halsey’s “Closer” in September 2016.
Of the 43 songs that have debuted at No. 1 on the #Hot100, @BTS_twt‘s “Dynamite” is the 20th to have remained on top in its second week.
With 182,000 downloads sold in its second week after opening with 265,000 in its first week, “Dynamite” is the first song to have sold over 180,000 downloads in consecutive weeks in nearly four years, since @TheChainsmokers‘ “Closer” ft. @halsey (208,000; 199,000 in Sept. 2016).
All news on the BTS front has been good in recent days. They won all four of the VMAs for which they were nominated this year: Best Pop, Best K-Pop, Best Choreography (all for their “On” video), and Best Group. Additionally, Forbes named them the fourth highest-earning musical group of 2020.
Lamorne Morris spent seven seasons serving as the lovable oddball on Fox’s New Girl, carving out a space for himself in a straightforward sitcom with a predominately white cast. His character, Winston Bishop, found his footing in later seasons, navigating his duties as an over-involved cat dad, enjoying a string of riotously bad relationships, and getting involved in the shenanigans of his adorkable roommates. Winston Bishop might’ve never amounted to more than the token Black guy on a show that struggled to hone his voice early on, but Morris wouldn’t let that happen. His new series, Hulu’s surreal comedy Woke, feels like a symbolic reward for that representational effort. It’s certainly the kind of show Morris’ limitless talents deserve.
Woke, based on the life and work of artist Keith Knight, sees Morris playing a Black man enjoying a comfortable rise to stardom thanks to his popular comic before suddenly, and violently, being introduced to the prejudice and racism he’s side-skirted his entire life. Despite living in a progressive city (this time, San Francisco) and playing by an unwritten set of rules that allow him to occupy white spaces — a boardroom, a dinner party for the one percent, a gentrified apartment complex he hopes to move into with his equally privileged girlfriend — Keef still somehow finds himself the target of racial discrimination.
Worse, he’s profiled by a trigger-happy group of police officers who mistake him for a robbery suspect and assault him in the middle of a busy square, with dozens of onlookers, in broad daylight. He’s left bruised, disoriented, listening to his white roommate — a hippie obliviously creating a new energy drink company from purified cocaine — rail at the injustice. It’s all bizarre and surreal and completely ridiculous for someone like Keef, who’s kept his head down until this point, happy to turn a blind eye if it gives him a leg up. And that’s before the inanimate objects start talking to him. This all goes down in the show’s first episode and what follows is a brutally honest, relatable, darkly comedic look at race relations during a time when we’re in desperate need of more nuanced takes within that dialogue.
Woke tackles everything from gentrification and interracial relationships to intersectionality, toxic masculinity, problematic allyship, and the aftermath of trauma, but it keeps things fresh, inventive. It’s less a politically correct guide to identifying and fighting racism (though you’ll undoubtedly learn something you didn’t know from Keef’s journey) and more a Through The Looking Glass odyssey filled with cartoonish bottles of malt liquor and sidewalk trashcans directing us on a path of enlightenment.
Or, at the very least, directing Keef, who can’t decide whether he should embrace the label of “Black artist” or fight to separate his work from the color of his skin and the bias that comes with it, spending most of the show’s early episodes raging against assuming the burden of using his art to call out social justice issues. He teeters between benefitting from his carefully cultivated image — a well-dressed Black man, a starving artist, just trying to draw toast and butter cartoons that make white people laugh — and using it to Trojan Horse his way into these guarded spaces before detonating a reality-altering bomb that makes these people woefully aware of their own complicity.
That might mean dropping a satirical “Black People For Rent” cartoon in the alt newspaper owned by Sasheer Zamata’s Ayana. Or taking to the podium during a Con to point out examples of Black erasure in his work before getting into a screaming match with his own cardboard cutout as his friends Gunther (Blake Anderson) and Clovis (T. Murph) worriedly look on. Morris does well enough to make this early exploration of his character’s internal dilemma interesting, whether that means he’s the token Black guy at a fancy party for white people that puts off some strong Get Out vibes or accidentally Black-facing his white girlfriend during an artistic presentation filled with cultural tastemakers.
But Morris, and the show as a whole, start to solidify during the last half of the season, particularly the last two episodes which see Keef, Clovis, and Gunther attending the above-mentioned party and trekking across the city for a meeting that ends up being canceled for a surreal reason that matches the rest of the show. The series hits the right frequency when these three men, all from different backgrounds with wildly opposing views, start to hash out the micro-aggressions, the prejudice, the privilege, and their own culpability within this system they’ve come to accept. We laugh along as Gunther tries to hype himself up for a boundary-pushing sexual adventure or when Clovis’ come-ons continuously get shot down by Zamata’s Ayana, but it’s when all three men encourage, criticize, and observe each other’s behavior that we learn the most from this woke-a**comedy.
Still, as Keef comes to learn, there’s always more to be done and it would’ve been nice if this series had committed to treating Black women with the same respect as it does Black men. Zamata doesn’t earn nearly enough screen time, and Keef’s early interactions with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend are symbolic of a larger problem with how Black women are devalued in relationships — something made worse when Keef begins hooking up with a privileged, carefree white artist named Adrienne (Rose McIver). Clovis, though the show’s best form of comedic relief, doesn’t undergo the same kind of needed transformation as his cartoonist bro, beginning the series as a womanizing con-artist with a complex and ending it by… befriending one of the women he shamelessly pursued all season. (I suppose seeing women as equals worthy of your friendship instead of a quick f*ck is progress on some level.)
But even with these missteps, there’s a lot to love about how unapologetically fearless Woke is, both creatively and thematically. It’s a meaningful piece of television in an age when that can be a rare thing.
Stellan Skarsgård told us last year (while promoting HBO’s Chernobyl) that he was preparing to spend “a lot of time in the makeup chair” for Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune reboot, and he wasn’t messing around. Skarsgård plays the big bad, Baron Harkonnen (enemy of Oscar Isaac’s Duke Leto Atreides), and the veteran actor revealed to us that his role isn’t a huge one, so he only needed to be onset for about two weeks. However, Baron himself is, well, kinda huge, so Skarsgård was gearing up (with movie magic) to match the script weight of 300 pounds, of which he added, “I can’t gain that much weight and survive.” So that meant a lot of rubber prosthetics and, yup, a lot of time on set before an “Action!” call.
Well, it sounds like he had a good time. Skarsgård is now talking about his time on Dune on the day before the trailer arrives. As he told The Mirror of Baron. “He’s fat, that was fun to do.” He also remarked, “It’s sort of fun to play this huge monster, but it’s less fun to spend five or six hours in make-up every day.”
All worth it in the name of the spice, no doubt. However much fun Skarsgård had, though, his experience pales in comparison to the longest time (allegedly) ever spent each day in a makeup chair. That record still apparently belongs to Rod Steiger from 1969’s The Illustrated Man (1969), although 20 hours to paint on tattoos sounds unfathomable. Not only that, but it sure looks like Colin Farrell must have invested hefty time for his The Penguin transformation in The Batman. Hopefully, we’ll hear some claims about time spent there soon.
Dune also stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Dave Bautistia, Javier Bardem, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster. The film is still scheduled for a December 18 release.
Keeping up with the best new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw Big Sean revisit a beloved mixtape and SZA drop her first new solo track in a good while. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
Big Sean — Detroit 2
Big Sean’s original DatPiff-crashing Detroit mixtape was a major success in 2012, and now Sean has dipped back into that well for his latest album, Detroit 2. Like its predecessor, Detroit 2 is packed full of guests: Making appearances are Eminem, Nipsey Hussle, Post Malone, Anderson .Paak, Ty Dolla Sign, Kanye West, Travis Scott, and many others.
Lil Durk is just a few months removed from his fifth album, Just Cause Y’all Waited 2, and he’s already blessing fans with more new material. He dropped “The Voice” last week, and on the confident track, Durk compares himself to one of hip-hop’s great icons: “I’m Durkio, but I’m Chicago Jay-Z.”
Kevin Morby — “Campfire”
Morby departed Los Angeles for an empty house in his Kansas City hometown and, often joined by Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield, went ahead and recorded an album, Sundowner. The record quickly follows 2019’s Oh My God, and he heralded it with “Campfire,” a folk-leaning number with a nature-set visual to match.
Adrianne Lenker — “Anything”
Lenker is keeping up her stretch of productivity with yet another new project. Well, a pair of them, actually: The upcoming albums Songs and Instrumentals. Both were recorded after the pandemic shut down the world, and to announce them, she shared “Anything,” the type of delicate folk tune she has gorgeously pulled off time and time again.
Bill Callahan — Gold Record
Uproxx’s Steven Hyden wrote of Gold Record, “The meditative quality and low-key humor of Callahan’s recent work is endlessly fulfilling and inspiring. Gold Record moves me precisely because Bill Callahan shows you can eventually move in rhythm with life, rather than be ground down by it.”
Gus Dapperton — “Medicine”
Gus Dapperton is in the midst of an introspective shift for his upcoming album, Orca, which is evident on “Medicine.” Dapperton said of the piano ballad, “This track defines the album most explicitly. I wrote it as a song that would narrate my life. ‘Medicine’ is about someone who is self-destructive so that they can get high off of the process of healing. The hurting phase is of no concern to them.”
Finneas — “What They’ll Say About Us”
Finneas continues to prove he’s more than Billie Eilish’s brother on his latest solo effort, “What They’ll Say About Us,” a piano-pop ballad that Finneas dedicates “to all who have had to endure this year.” Indeed, the track is an appreciation of strength, as Finneas sings lyrics like, “You’re tired now, lie down / I’ll be waitin’ to give you the good news / It might take patience / And when you wake up, it won’t be over / So don’t you give up.”
G-Eazy — “Down” Feat. Mulatto
G-Eazy and Mulatto had a lot of fun for their “Down” video, which draws inspiration from the 1999 comedy Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. Here, G-Eazy plays a prostitute posing as a front desk attendant at a hotel, earning money for his boss, Mulatto. The project seems to have an official stamp of approval, as they even got a Rob Schneider appearance in there.
Chloe x Halle — “Do It” Feat. Doja Cat, City Girls, and Mulatto
Chloe x Halle are two of R&B’s brightest young stars, and they recruited some of music’s other finest women for the “Do It” remix. Joined by Doja Cat, City Girls, and Mulatto (big week for her), everybody involved puts out confident party vibes wrapped in a silky smooth package.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Last week, Nick Cannon unveiled the first part of his Kanye West episode of Cannon’s Class, a conversation that yielded a number of headlines. Now Cannon has returned with the second portion of the conversation, and in it, Kanye claims that Bernie Sanders turned down a meeting with him.
Discussing his meeting with Jared Kushner, Kanye said, “I’m not one of these, ‘I’m Black so I’m Democrat, 95 percent’… 95 percent of Black people are Democrat. I wanted to meet with Bernie Sanders before, he wouldn’t meet with me. Now, I’m fine to meet with Biden. I would meet with anybody! I love everybody! Jesus loves everybody.”
He then outlined his relationship with Kushner, saying, “I met with Jared… that’s a friend of mine. I knew them before they were in the White House. Trump used to go to award shows with Puff Daddy.”
If you were asked to name five Alfred Hitchcock movies, your answers would likely include Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, maybe Rope if you’re kinky. Those are among his most famous films — hell, they’re some of the most famous films of all-time — but none of them were nominated for Best Picture. In fact, only one Hitchcock-directed film ever won Best Picture: 1941’s Rebecca. Netflix hopes to hear that name again on April 25, 2021, during the 93rd Academy Awards.
Based on Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic novel of the same name, the new adaptation of Rebecca is directed by Ben Wheatley (Free Fire) and stars Lily James as a newly-married woman who finds herself living in the shadow of her husband’s (Armie Hammer) dead first wife. Kristin Scott Thomas, perfectly cast, also features as the dedicated housekeeper of Manderley mansion, Mrs. Danvers. If you haven’t seen Hitchcock’s Rebecca, I would suggest waiting until after the remake comes out, not only to avoid comparisons between Hammer and Laurence Olivier, but also because there are some surprises along the way.
Here’s the official plot synopsis:
A young newlywed arrives at her husband’s imposing family estate on a windswept English coast and finds herself battling the shadow of his first wife Rebecca, whose legacy lives on in the house long after her death. A modern adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s gothic novel comes to Netflix: starring Armie Hammer, Lily James, and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Mission: Impossible 7, the upcoming Tom Cruise franchise picture that does everything but send him to space, shut down production in February due to you-know-what. Getting things started again involved Cruise personally calling Norway’s culture minister before igniting a local controversy involving cruise ships. This followed a bridge kerfuffle and a gone wrong, but Paramount Pictures must be breathing a sigh of relief because it’s all happening (again) for real.
Of course, there have been occasional sightings of Cruise already leaping out of planes and all that, but one never really knows if that’s for business or pleasure. Now, director Chris McQuarrie has posted a truly “impossible” photo to prove that the beleaguered film is truly underway again. He even used this caption: “Action… #MI7 Day 1.”
Yikes… so basically a ramp that leads into the sky? Sounds about right for this franchise and the thrill-seeking leading man. The Norweigian scenery is certainly amazing, and we don’t know exactly who is standing atop that terrifying structure, but there’s a solid chance that it’s Mr. Tom Cruise himself. The Light the Fuse podcast and various Twitter users have posted video of the Cruise in action with a motorcycle and parachute, and my god, he must be so happy.
Mission: Impossible 7 should be released on November 19, 2021.
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